Contact terminals are metallic and must be secured in dielectric housings by mechanical means. Certain methods involve molding the housing around the terminals, or potting the terminals within the housing or force fitting the terminals in individual passageways for permanent retention. For retention to permit removal of a terminal conventional methods include locking fingers on a stamped and formed terminal which extend at an appropriate angle laterally to engage behind stop surfaces along the housing passageway to secure the terminal against withdrawal, but are deflectable by a tool inserted into the passageway alongside the terminal whereafter the terminal is withdrawn such as for repair or replacement. Another conventional method involves locking fingers of the plastic housing extending into the passageway which are initially deflected by the terminal during insertion and which latch behind an annular collar or stop surface of the terminal upon full insertion, and these fingers are also deflectable for terminal removal.
A variety of retention clips are known, mostly cylindrical metal sleeves which are stamped and formed to have locking fingers which engage an annular collar of a terminal and which are retained in the housing passageway in one of several ways.
One common method is to secure a rentention clip in a larger diameter passageway portion, where smaller diameter passageway portions at each end define opposing stop surfaces which secure the correspondingly larger diametered clip therebetween. But forming such larger diameter passageway portions in a housing necessitates making the housing from two molded parts adjoining in a plane cutting through the larger diameter passageway portions; the clips are secured in respective halves of the passageway portions of one housing part, and the other housing part is then placed thereagainst and bonded. An example thereof is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,585,294. It is desirable to eliminate the necessity of a two part housing and the alignment and bonding steps, where the two parts are used just to retain the retention clips.
In some connector assemblies retention clips are secured to the respective terminals prior to assembly in the housing, such as is done in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,009,130 and 3,187,297 which delimit axially rearward movement of the terminal in the passageway after full insertion from rearward thereof and allow rearward removal if an insertion tool (such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,009,130) is inserted from the front end to deflect the clip's latching projections.